I solely not too long ago turned conscious that Michael Jerryson handed away final yr – far too younger, barely older than myself. I want to supply my tribute to him right here.
I knew Michael personally due to a beautiful biannual invite-only convention that brings collectively students of Buddhist ethics. He and I definitely clashed, for he would declare that students – even in ethics! – mustn’t themselves be taking normative positions. I’m not exactly friendly to that view. However the debates themselves have been pleasant and heat, as they need to be – and as Michael himself was.
I do know why Michael took the place he did, that Buddhism students ought to solely describe and never consider. His work was in a style with the works of Stephen Jenkins and Brian Victoria: offering a much-needed corrective to the too-often-held view that Buddhism is a essentially peaceable and pacifist custom. Because it seems, there was violence aplenty dedicated in its identify. And once we concentrate on the nonviolent Buddhist beliefs that we ourselves admire, we should not blind ourselves to that.
Michael’s work was particulary poignant for me as a result of it explored Buddhist violence in Thailand, the place I’d had my life-changing epiphany. That epiphany was within the north and northeast of the nation (together with neighbouring Laos), whereas Michael’s work targeted on the south. Now to most Western guests like me, southern Thailand and its sunny seashores sometimes play the position of a trip getaway. However proceed additional south than most Westerners go, close to the Malaysian border, and one finds a special, extra violent world. The southern Thai state of affairs shouldn’t be the situation in Burma the place there are clear-cut good guys and dangerous guys: impoverished Muslim refugees and Buddhist monks urging their butchering. It’s a extra commonplace state of affairs of ethnic battle, the place a dominant political majority group treats a minority in ways in which make them chafe, the minority desires to separate off politically and violence ensues. However for the reason that teams are marked as Muslim and Buddhist, Buddhists commit violent acts within the identify of Buddhism.
So whereas I do agree with Sallie King that violent extremism is “not a sound expression of the dharma”, I believe King and I’ve to be clear that once we say this, we’re talking as theologians, participating within the correct tutorial exercise of growing normative philosophical positions grounded in our religion commitments. We’re not offering a sociological description of these extremists, who see themselves as expressing the dharma completely validly. We expect they’re mistaken about that, simply as tutorial Christian theologians may assume creationists are mistaken about evolution – however these theologians must be clear that these creationists see themselves as Christian.
The descriptive and the normative get particularly conflated in discussions of engaged Buddhism. There has by no means been actual settlement about what “engaged Buddhism” means. Is it a particular trendy motion, progressive in a broad sense, beginning with Dharmapala and Taixu? Or is it an older and extra common tendency inside Buddhism towards political motion, Steven Collins’s non-disengaged “mode”, together with classical works on kingship? (Such because the Mahāvaṃsa, which urges the killing of unbelievers?)
Engaged Buddhist students are inclined to confuse the 2: collapsing Buddhist political engagement usually into the views of the trendy progressive left. In so doing, it makes invisible the individuals who Michael Jerryson studied: individuals who do issues that we leftists discover dangerous, and achieve this within the identify of Buddhism. Michael studied individuals who name themselves Buddhists and who’re politically engaged, however are hardly ever thought of “engaged Buddhists”. His work was a a lot wanted corrective.
I’ll shut with my private reminiscence of Michael that almost all stands out: of his preparedness. The lodging offered by the convention in its first yr was in a campus residence; the organizers had famous that this association meant shared rooms, however not that it meant there can be no toiletries! I used to be left fecklessly with none cleaning soap or shampoo. Michael, nonetheless, had introduced a lot of those that he couldn’t merely lend me his personal provide, however lend me extra bottles to final me via the convention whereas he used his personal. I owed my consolation there to him.
Cross-posted at the Indian Philosophy Blog.
